Thursday, October 28, 2010

Bats in the Belfry

My friend C volunteers her time to help with a local DC after school program; she has a small group of elementary school girls that she works with and I think that the program is great but the timing of the group doesn't work for my schedule. So, C being fantastic, is letting me help her with snack (my little contribution).

In this vein, yesterday C did Halloween themed snacks. She made a really cute graveyard cake and so I thought bats might be a fun accompaniment.

I made brownies and used a sheet pan lined with parchment verses a regular pan so that I could cut the bats out with a cookie cutter. Then I just whipped up some royal icing (quite a bit actually--I am saving some to make pumpkins tonight!) to outline and the eyes are red hots.

In the bat realm, I decided to make some bat themed Halloween cards. I usually plan these things out better but this one, I was just feeling the need to make something.

My craft room is currently lacking in function; Dan had planned to build me a wall of shelving and peg board and I was going to put a tall table in the center...then we found out we might be moving...and all plans were halted.

Thus, I am using a large piece of book board on my floor as a crafting area, much to Remi's amusement! He is a curious little one; he watches patiently for a while, but then he cannot contain the curiosity and must stiff (see above), and I cannot confirm or deny that he ate a few bats...he has a thing for paper.

I used Paper Source Chartreuse and Black (A6 Chartreuse flat cards and text weight paper, and Black A6 envelopes and text weight paper--also for bats). Paper Source carries Martha Stewart craft punches now, so the bats came from a Martha punch using Black and Chartreuse text weight paper and I attached them to the card and envelope using a Xyron (above in pink).

The mini Xyron is one of my favorite gadgets; it turns anything into a sticker (hence the reason it's called a Xyron Create-a-sticker :P). For someone who loves craft punches, not having to use a glue stick to attach tiny pieces of paper is a fantastic thing. You drop your little creation in the top of the X (hole on the right) and at the bottom of the X (where the paper is on the left) you pull the strip and your creation now is on a sticker sheet with sticky on the back--ta da!

I lined the envelopes with the PS Chartreuse dot wrapping paper (you can buy this in individual sheets from the flat paper wall or you can get it on a roll; I have the roll because this is great to have on hand for generic birthdays and it is easy to store with the rest of my wrapping paper).

In the past I thought that envelope liners were silly but the PS liner kit makes it really easy and you can use any type of paper you want.

I thought that in all they turned out well; I added little eyes later that are not shown in any of the photos. Hope everyone has a great Halloween!